Hobinator plotting a rip-roaring sequel
THEY say a caged animal is the most dangerous but Dundalk will be hoping their very own caged animal, Pat Hoban, can begin tearing defences apart sooner rather than later after a frustrating few weeks.
Having rejoined the club in November, the 26-year-old had to wait until a brief cameo appearance in Sunday’s President’s Cup defeat to Cork City to pull on the number 9 jersey once again after seeing his pre-season curtailed by a thigh problem.
By his own admission, Hoban has been kept in ‘cotton wool’ to a certain agree with Stephen Kenny unwilling to take any risks with a man who scored 42 goals in 78 matches for the club during his last spell here in 2013 and 2014.
With the new league season getting underway at home to Bray Wanderers on Friday night, Hoban is hoping the shackles will be taken off though as he targets a second Premier Division title.
‘I feel like a lion trying to get out of a cage who wants to eat a gazelle. That’s what I feel like right now,’ he said when asked about his frustrations.
Hoban endured something of a nightmare 2017 with just a handful of outings for former club Mansfield Town before a knee problem prevented a move back to Dundalk last summer.
That was all resolved and Hoban returned to the town before last Christmas in order to get himself ready for his second spell at Oriel. His desire to do well though perhaps saw him push himself too hard, too soon leaving him looking on throughout pre-season before Sunday.
‘There’s so much I’ve done in the off season by myself,’ he said.
‘I was recovered from my injury from last year and just doing rehab. I was ready to go but the first week of pre-season was quite high intense straight away so I probably went from zero to 100 really quick and just pulled up with something ever so slight in my thigh.
‘It’s nothing major but it’s more about precaution for down the road because it could have developed into something a lot worse. At least we caught it.
‘I ran 8k that training session but I knew something wasn’t right so I got a scan and it showed there was something there. It’s frustrating though in terms of watching pre-season games go by.’
If anyone could have done with a decent pre-season it is the Galway-born striker. His last competitive goals were more than 13 months ago when he scored a brace for Mansfield in their 2-0 Checkatrade Trophy victory over Oldham Athletic on January 10th 2017.
Despite that match-winning double he managed just 195 minutes more for the rest of the season and hadn’t played competitively at all before Sunday since featuring for the final four minutes of Mansfield’s 1-0 defeat to Portsmouth on April 29th last.
There are those who view Hoban’s time in England as a failure but 12 goals from 48 starts is hardly terrible. Instead his time cross channel was a series of misfortunes with injuries and managerial changes meaning he never truly got to build up a head of steam.
Having departed Dundalk for Oxford Utd after their 2014 title triumph on the final day of the season against Cork, he has had to contend with questions about how he felt about missing the Lilywhites’ double success of 2015 or the glorious European run 12 months later. The player himself has no regrets though and while not everything went to plan for him in England, he feels he is returning to Oriel Park a better and more rounded player than the one who departed with a then club record 20 league goals in his final season.
‘My first session with Oxford I done my ankle and was out for two months. Coming in then I was thrown straight in at the deep end. They brought me in as a number nine, something similar to what Stephen Kenny played in terms of formation so I should have suited that role straight away.
‘The problem is that when I went over they weren’t getting results so they changed formation then all of a sudden when I came back I was playing in a two. People will say should that not be easier but it wasn’t because I ended up being too far away from goal, I was playing more of a defensive role and if you don’t do that you’re not in the team.
‘It was the same at Mansfield. At times I felt I was a number 10 and everyone knows I’m definitely not a number 10. I’m a striker. I need to stay up there and occupy centre halves and get lads into the game but I just felt like I had to adapt.
‘I adapted as best I could. I remember pulling the manager Michael Appleton in November and asked him why I wasn’t playing he said ‘Pat, I need goals’. I got a chance after that and scored three in two. The next league game after that was against Newport. We were 1-0 down at half-time and he brought me on and I scored and we drew 1-1. The next game I started. I didn’t score but I felt I played okay but then the next game after that I was dropped so there was no continuity.
‘In your head that’s disheartening because you know the manager doesn’t fancy you as much as he does other lads. When I’ve been at Dundalk, Stephen always made me his number one and it was very hard not to be someone’s number one or even their number two.’
Loan spells didn’t work out as he might have hoped either. An ankle injury in his first game for Stevenage almost immediately curtailed a one month spell there and while another loan to Grimsby Town went slightly better as he helped them to promotion, living out of a hotel and not having his dietary needs looked after by the club wasn’t ideal for a man who is nothing if not professional.
There were hopes of better things in the 2016/17 season with Mansfield but Steve Evans didn’t fancy him and outings were rare.
‘What happened at Mansfield, it was just one of those things,’ said Hoban.
‘There was nothing you can do playing wise. It was just that the manager had his own style and he wanted his own players to play. I wasn’t his player.
‘He loved me before the January window opened but that’s football. They use you and that’s what happens.
‘I hate hard luck stories but I could nearly write a book about my time in England and I was only over there for about two-and-a-half years. It was an emotional rollercoaster ride but I feel like I still came out strong in terms of my mentality. I never let myself go too much in terms of my body shape. I always looked after myself really well but I was just unlucky in terms of injuries and I hate the word unlucky because I’m the type of person who doesn’t like hearing hard luck stories. That’s an excuse in my opinion but it happens to the best of us.
‘Injuries do come but for some reason I just got an absolute brunt of them.’
The former Mervue Utd man had offers to stay in England but a desire to be happier on and off the pitch meant an offer to return to Dundalk appealed the most.
He still has complete faith in his ability and that he can